


Through the Valley of Death

by Chibifukurou



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Animal Death, Child Death, Death of OCs, Isolation, M/M, No Major Cannon Character Death, Pre-Slash, Survival Horror, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-06 03:10:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15877281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: Vasquez finds an abandoned cabin outside of a small town perched just off of the Appalachian Trail.Finding a place where the people don't pay attention to the outside world or care about what happened before you came to town, is a godsend for a fugitive like him.When a virus strikes, the isolation turns dangerous. Desperate to find out what is happening, his CB radio is his only way to contact the outside world. Now he finds himself falling in love with a kind voice man he may never get a chance to meet.Will he choose to remain safe in his cabin, isolated from the world around him? Or will he make the decision risk his life for a chance to do the right thing?





	1. He makes me lie Down in Green Pastures

Vasquez hiked into town. His mostly empty pack was strapped to his back. Nobody gave him more than passing attention. A nod here, a bleary-eyed glare there, but nothing that set his instincts off, and told him to run. 

Meadow Springs had barely two hundred residents. Two churches, a convenience store, a gas-station that sold kerosene more often than gas, and a bank. A couple dozen houses, all clinging to the edge of the Appalachian trail. 

People here didn’t much care about what went on in the world. Everybody just kept their heads down and dreamed of moving to a place that had something to do besides work yourself to the bone on your land trying to keep your family fed, or taking something, meth or moonshine to escape the place life had forced you into. 

Finding an abandoned cabin only a few miles hike outside of town had been a blessing. Nobody had even asked if he had legal rights to it, just accepted him as one more person with nowhere else to go. And working on getting it livable kept him from dwelling on the bone aching silence and the fact that he had no way to contact his Madre or sisters, or any of his nieces and nephews. No way to know if somebody had snatched their visas, dragged the babies from their parents’ arms, and tossed them all back across the border. He prayed every night that they were still safe that they'd gotten away clean while he'd been giving everyone something else to chase. 

Old Paul ran the convenience store. He barely looked up from his magazine full of scantily dressed women when the bell above the door ran cheerily to announce Vasquez's entrance. He’d stopped trying to convince Vasquez to gossip after his first view visits last fall. Beside the counter a twenty hour new cycle ran on the staticky TV, blinking in and out as the aluminum foil festooned rabbit ears lost signal. Vasquez had never heard the volume on, but the English words scrolled beneath the newscaster's artificially smiling face, usually moving too fast for Vasquez to keep up with without a lot of concentration. 

So he ignored it, save for when the flickering light it cast caught the corner of his eye and made him jump and look around for what had moved to see if it was a threat. 

He moved up and down the aisles, stuffing bags of rice, cans of beans, toilet paper and shaving cream -all the essentials for life he couldn't hunt or grow himself- into his bag as he went. Paul's didn't have baskets, and he'd dump it all back out again once it was time to pay. He didn't like having his hands full. Made him twitchy not being able to grab for the knife shoved into the back of his pants, or the rifle strapped to his back. 

The last thing he grabbed was a bag of M&Ms from the display near the checkout counter. Paul was still staring at his magazine between glances at the TV. It cost near four dollars for a packet of M&Ms not even the size of his hand, but it would be his birthday soon and he wasn't going to try to make himself a cake on the patched wooden stove back in the cabin. 

He dropped the candy on the counter first before slinging his pack down at his feet and put everything on the counter one at a time. The beep, beep of Paul entering the prices by hand was the only sign that the man had stopped gawking at lady's midriffs and breasts. 

The first time he'd come here, Vasquez had watched him like a hawk. Worried that Paul wasn't trying to charge him any more money than he already got by pricing everything at four of five times the national average. But for all everything was typed in by hand, and the cash register was so old that the receipts it printed out were faded to the point of near-illegibility, Vasquez had never seen Paul take a penny more than he was owed. 

Once his bag was empty he refilled it from the pile of checked out items, Paul had shoved to the far side of the counter. He didn't bother asking if Vasquez wanted things bagged any more. 

Paul spat a wad of chewing tobacco into the empty peanut butter he kept under the counter for the purpose, and instead of shoving in another couple pinches, cleared his throat instead. Vasquez almost grabbed his gun on instinct at the sound. 

“You heard anything about the new flu?” Paul asked, his voice hoarse. 

Vasquez straightened from the crouch he'd fallen into when the noise has startled him, forced his hand away from the gun barrel. “No, radio doesn't pick up much up at the cabin.” 

Paul nodded and didn't speak for a while. As he kept typing in items and shoving them to the far side of the counter. “Might be worth stocking up on more than a few weeks of groceries, just in case. Better not to come down and get it. Anna from over by the church works as a nurse two towns over. You know the one where they got that hospital?” 

Vasquez nodded like he knew Anna. 

“Says they've got two cases so far. Super contagious, expects it to keep coming this way as folks go out to other towns. Told everybody to hunker down, stay away from the other towns.” Paul snorted, his opinion clear on the likelihood of that happening. “News says it causes irrational aggression, like folk got into a bad batch of meth or something.” 

Vasquez looked up at the screen. Forcing himself to carefully follow along with the words as they scrolled past. He couldn't catch it all, but enough with Paul's commentary. State of emergency, bigger cities shutting down to stop the spread. Emaciated folks wandering the street, sometimes running after people. Rabid...flu...dangerous....stay inside. 

“Thanks for the warning.” He went back to the aisle with ammo and then over to where the bagged rice was. He couldn't afford to carry another couple weeks of food, but he'd get what he could. He’d try to stay up at the cabin for an extra week at least. He even grabbed batteries for the radio he kept in his cabin. It only worked when he took him a quarter mile out, into one of the few open patches in the nearby woods.It wasn't usually worth the bother. But better safe than sorry. 

He paid in cash and nodded his thanks before leaving the store. Now that he was looking for it, he could see that folks weren't staying out on the street to gossip like usual. Instead they kept a few feet of space between themselves and the people they passed and rushed between buildings. 

He hiked his bag up a little higher and quickened his steps. If he caught some kind of mega flu he'd be as good as dead. He didn't think those shambling folks on the TV would be able to work a hand pump to get water or go out to hunt fresh meat. And he couldn’t check himself into the hospital without an ID or Insurance card. 

#  
Once he got back to the cabin, he mostly put the whole matter out of his head. He took the radio out to the field once every couple days for the first week and a half until it stops picking up signal. 

Radio stations and signals didn't always come out this far in the mountains. But usually... usually it was in the winter the signals failed. The leaves on the trees are just starting to color and fall. 

There should be at least one station still running. But there was nothing. Not even in on the a.m. channels.   
He tried to keep it out of his mind. It was probably a defective part, and he wasn't planning to hike to the town with the store that sold parts. Not when it was closer to the big hospital than Meadow Springs.   
He focuses on the garden. He's not good at it, so it could use extra attention. Madre had always been the one who did the gardening at home. But he was learning. It was reaching the end of summer and after the disastrous time he’d had last winter, he knew he couldn’t afford to slack off. 

Only the help of his neighbors and the people living in town that had kept him from starving to death. Or freezing before that. He hadn't realized how much firewood he would need or how many cracks had still let air in despite his efforts to winter proof the cabin. 

Growing up in southern Texas, he had been completely mystified when faced with five feet of snow. He spent most of the first month of winter cycling between half starved to death and being so cold he couldn't sleep for fear he wouldn't wake up. 

It wasn't an experience he planned to repeat. 

The second Saturday after his last hike into town came and went. The change in routine made him nervy. But the radio still wasn’t working and when he thought too hard about hiking down to town, the images of those rabid folks on the TV appeared behind his eyelids. 

If something bad was happening out in the world, the woods showed no sign of it. The turkeys were starting to come out in force. And he managed to catch three and a few dozen fish as well. 

It was about the right time to bag a deer, too. He couldn't buy a hunting license without going down into town. But up this far, the fish and wildlife agents didn't keep much track of when you bought a license, versus when you actually shot the deer. 

As long as he didn't hunt more than he had a license for, he'd be fine going a little early. Besides, it was a good excuse to go on a couple day-long trip. If he kept puttering around the cabin, alone, he'd go mad by the time he felt safe enough to go back into town. 

The best deer hunting was further along the ridge. On his neighbor’s land, but still a few acres away from their house He wasn't close enough that he would need to worry about accidentally shooting them, instead of the deer. And as long as he shared the meat they’d be happy to have him do the hunting. 

Mr. and Mrs. McGuinness were an older couple. When he'd been struggling last winter, the husband came by. Barely taller than Vasquez's chin he'd been dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt with suspenders and work boots. The kind of outfit Vasquez could vaguely remember his grandfather wearing when he was a child. 

Mr. McGuinness had come to the door without warning, and giving Vasquez a long look that had terrified him. He’d been convinced for a long moment that his identity had been discovered. 

Then he’d started talking. “I've got to move the outhouse before the ground freezes over, and Paul and the ladies at the church said you were a nice young man.” He squinted up at the Vasquez on the last few words. Probably trying to figure out if he was nice as the man had been led to believe. “Said you needed a better pair of boots and a coat. I've got some from back when my sons lived here, we'll see about getting you set up.” 

They had gotten him set up. Along with the cloths, Mrs. McGuinness had insisted that he take home bags full of canned vegetables. “Don’t want you getting scurvy, now.” 

And Mr. McGuinness had even had his son drop off a truckload of firewood the next time he was in town. 

Setting them up with half a deer seemed like a good way to start repaying the debt.

#

Vasquez buried himself in the brush and went still and quiet. He could barely hear his own breathing. Slowly, all the forest came alive around him. All the creatures seemed to forget a predator was lying in wait in their midst. 

He's been in the brush for hours before anything larger than a squirrel or bird passes by him. The crickets were starting to chirp when a Buck slowly walked into sight. Its ears were perked as it surveyed its surroundings with liquid brown eyes. 

It was a big one, enough that the meat, once smoked, would keep him fed for weeks, Even after sharing it with the McGuinness. 

He sights on it. Slowly… slowly he moved, inching his finger towards the trigger. Preparing to make the shot as clean as he could. 

The Buck froze. Had he heard Vasquez? No, it spun to look behind it. It took off like a shot. Once the sound of its bounding faded away, the entire forest was silent. Even the crickets had stopped chirping.   
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. 

What had the deer heard? Maybe there was another hunter in the woods? If so, he it better to avoid draw attention to himself. He might startle the other hunter into shooting him, instead of the deer. If it was a predator, like a bear, he should definitely stay where he was. He’d never make it if he tried to run. 

He did his best to merge into the underbrush, his senses straining to locate the threat. There was a distant high-pitched whine. Like some sick or an injured animal. Part of his mind wanted to tell him that meant it wasn’t a threat. Nothing to be afraid of. If he just ignored it, it will go away. 

He didn't trust that part of his mind. Sick or injured animals, were usually the biggest threats. 

Another minute and he could hear something stumbling to the underbrush. It didn’t sound as large as a bear. And it's definitely no hunter.... nobody with training would make that amount of noise.   
He didn't believe his eyes at first when Mr. McGuinness stumbled into the clearing. His clothes were covered in mud and dark red stains that looked suspiciously like blood. If Mr. McGuinness was hurt, Vasquez should help him. He started to push himself to his feet. 

Mr. McGuinness turned towards him. His eyes were wide and filmed over with what looked like cataracts. His face was slack. His mouth hung open. A mixture of blood and saliva coated his chin. He stumbled further into the clearing with a strange wobbly gait, like he couldn't quite remember how to make his legs work. 

Vasquez lowered himself back to the ground, praying he hadn’t made enough noise to draw attention. This was different from seeing those wobbly figures on the TV at Paul's. They had seemed distant. He’d been vaguely concerned that the illness might come to town, and some people might get sick. 

Now all he could feel was gut wrenching fear. Half of his mind was screaming at him to run...run...run. The other half was telling him to do whatever it took to keep that thing that unnatural thing away from him. 

Vasquez knew what you did with rabid things. You kill them before they made more rabid things. But this was Mr. McGuinness. He couldn’t shoot Mr. McGuinness just because he had some kind of mega flu that made him look rabid. 

And had him covered in blood. 

He should get up, go over to him and trying to get him back to his cabin. Maybe it would mean getting the sickness himself, but he couldn’t just leave a sick old man wandering the woods.

Before he could make himself move, a squirrel, stupider than the rest of the animals in the area, shot out from a tree and ran near Mr. McGuinness. 

Mr. McGuinness went after it. Moving like a man possessed. Like he was starving. His hands were claws that dragged up furrows of earth as he chased the squirrel. The squirrel tried to run. It was faster than Mr. McGuinness. But it tried to throw him off by zigging back and forth like it would to get away from a normal predator, like a cat or a fox. 

It didn't work on something with human intelligence. Or whatever it was that was driving Mr. McGuinness now. He went to the straight line, snapping the squirrel up in his jaws. The squirrel screamed. One sharp short sound. And then it hung limp for Mr. McGuinness mouth. 

Vasquez watched to see if he ate it. Instead, when it stopped making noise and went limp Mr. McGuinness dropped it. Hi pushed himself off of all fours and started walking further into the meadow, head bobbing back and forth, searching for prey. 

The sounds of the forest came back once the sound of his staggering steps grew distant. Vasquez stayed where he was until the sun went the rest of the way down and he could convince himself that Mr. McGuinness wouldn’t be able to see him. 

The forced stillness gave him plenty of time to think things over. Mr. McGuinness, if he was still in there, had just killed a squirrel for doing nothing else but getting near him. There had been blood on his chin and shirt. More than he’d have gotten from savaging a few squirrels. 

And if he’d gotten the flu, he’d have been home with Mrs. McGuinness. What if she had been the first one he’d attacked? She’d need help. It didn’t make up for him leaving Mr. McGuinness in the woods, but it would have to do. 

Even the thought of going after him, being attacked and bitten like that squirrel. It was enough to make him want to hide back in the brush. 

He’d bring help back. He just had to go into town and get a couple people gathered together. They’d come back with whatever vaccine or treatment that the Government had come up with. Then they’d grab Mr. McGuinness and get him cured. 

For now, there wasn’t much that seemed likely to hurt him. Not if the animals were all running away.   
Right now, Mrs. McGuinness probably needed more help. He didn’t want to imagine what Mr. McGuinness, mad from the illness, had down to her. She could be sick or injured, or he tried not to think dead. 

He slung his rifle over his shoulder Being careful not to make too much noise just in case it through Mr. McGuinness had circled back. And then started the long walk towards the McGuinness’ cabin. Every rustle and noise in the surrounding woods, sent him scrambling for his rifle. 

#

The McGuinness’ owned a small cabin. It had been patch so many times that it is impossible to recognize what it originally look like. The outside walls were covered in salvaged wood and the roof was a patchwork of whatever metal scraps Mr. McGuinness had been able to fight on sale or in the local scrap yard. 

Vasquez had been here often since last winter, helping get new shingles on, since Mr. McGuinness was getting too frail to climb the ladder, or doing whatever odd jobs he could to repay their kindness sense last winter. It was usually a place that felt comforting and safe, like his childhood home. There was always candlelight glowing through the windows, and the scent of wood smoke on the breeze. 

Now there was just darkness and the smell of the forest. The cabin’s bulk looked ominous, silhouetted by the moonlight. He crept towards the cabin, moving slowly towards it anyway, praying that he wasn’t about to stumble onto a dead body. 

The hope that she was fine, had left when he’d first seen the dark cabin, and she couldn’t have gotten away when their beat up old truck was still parked in its usual spot by the woodshed. 

He wasn’t making a lot of noise. Hasn't been since he left Mr. McGuinness in the woods. But it was dark and he couldn’t see well enough to keep from making small noises, as his shoes scraped against gravel and panic made his breathing loud. 

Perhaps that was what brought her to him. A weight slammed into him. A high, whining scream filled the air. The thick vest he was wearing came between him and whatever was grabbing at him. Something pinched the meat his shoulder. Right where it met his neck. Only the vest’s collar protected his skin. 

Fear gave him the strength to tear the weight off and throw it away. Mrs. McGuinness landed on all fours, her face looked stark in the moonlight. Here eyes flashed an otherworldly green. Here bird decorated blouse is torn and covered in dark stains. 

The surprise froze him. She lunged at him here hands like knives cutting through the air, aiming for his vest.

Instinct took over, and the rifle went off. The bark of noise echoed through the woods, the only sound as she was thrown back by the force. He inches forward, expecting her to lunge back upright, like the villain in a cheap horror movie. 

She stayed where she was, sprawled across the ground. A harmless old lady drenched in blood.There was no sign of the sickness that had driven her before. 

He wrenched away and ran to be sick in the bushes. The tears came soon after. She'd been a helpless old woman, and he had killed her. It didn't matter that he could think of nothing else you could've done. He should have found a way to cure her. 

The sickness. 

Paul had said that it was very contagious, and he’d touched her. He yanked at the vest, his fingers shaking too hard to get the straps open without a fight. He was careful not to touch the outside of it where she’d been holding on. He dropped in next to her body, before stripping off his shirt too, not sure if she’d touched it when she’d jumped on it. 

It got dropped on top of the vest. 

Inside the cabin he went to the sink, yanking at the pump until water gushed into the sink. The noise of the water hitting the bottom of the sink made him jump. It was only then that he realized that the woods were still absolutely silent. 

It lent a sense of unreality to the night. Like if he could just go away, none of this would have happened. He’d wake up tomorrow and this would all be a nightmare. He forced himself not to give into the urge to walk away. To run. 

He had responsibilities here. His hands shook as he scrubbed all the skin of his hands and arms with the water and soap and then washed his neck where Mrs. McGuinness had tried to bite him as well. 

He didn't know how the virus spread. No one had mentioned it on the TV at Saul’s shop. What if it was already too late and he’d caught it? If he was sick, he didn’t want to go rabid and hurt someone else. He froze, his hands under the running water and stared at the rifle, propped against the counter next to the sink.   
It would be easy to make sure he couldn’t hurt anyone. 

No… he started washing his hands for a third time. No, not yet. He’d wait until he started getting sick. For now he needed to make sure that Mrs. McGuinness couldn’t get anybody else sick. He didn’t know much about viruses, but he did know you were supposed to burn things that were contaminated.

Once he was as clean as he could get himself, he dug into his pack for the flint he kept there. Then he went to the McGuinness’ wood shed to grab the extra tank of propane they kept for emergencies. 

He doused Mrs. McGuinness and the clothes with the accelerant. Set a stick on fire and then tossed it onto the whole mess. It went up with a whoosh. 

He stood, watching as first her clothes, and then her flesh started to burn. He whispered prayers under his breath. Praying to God to watch over her and to forgive him for having killed here. The crackling of the fire and the smell of the burning filled the night. It punctured the unreality of shock that had tried to take him over in the kitchen. 

This… there was no denying this was real. He’d killed Mrs. McGuinness, and he’d have to live with that. God have mercy on his soul and let him live with it. 

Let him be able to go save Mr. McGuinness to make up for some part of this terrible night. If Mr. McGuinness wanted to kill him for what he’d done, then, that would be fair. Just let all of this not have been for nothing. He stayed there, watching the flames until the sky started to turn to gray and bird song drowned out the last crackling noises of the fire. 

Then he went inside to fill a bucket of water to put out the ashes before he ended up killing more people in a wild fire. 

He hadn’t slept at all, but he couldn’t force himself to lay down here, in the McGuinness’ cabin. The idea of falling asleep in the woods where Mr. McGuinness or someone else sick might stumble upon him was laughable. 

No. He’d go into town. Let them know what had happened here. And then, he’d get some sleep before going back out to try to catch Mr. McGuinness.


	2. He leads me beside Still Waters

The three miles to Meadow Springs from the McGuinness' Land pased slowly as every sound left him scurrying for cover. Since he was still half naked that meant he ended up covered in a variety of scratches.   
The smell of smoke was thick in his nose. Would he ever stop smelling it? Ever stop seeing Mrs. McGuinness laying limp on the ground when he closed his eyes. 

By the time he made the last turn off the trail and onto the highway that led to town, the sun high in the sky. Exhaustion dragged at his eyelids. He concentrated on the road. It wasn’t until he caught a lungful of smoke and was doubled over by a coughing fit that he realized the acrid scent wasn’t just in his head. 

A column of oily smoke rose above the trees. He almost turned back around then, retreating to the woods.He forced himself forward, easing his rifle into a firing position, even as the thought of shooting another one of the people he’d come to care about made his hands shake. 

Another few minutes walking down the road until he made the last turn and could see the entirety of the small bowl of a valley where the town had been. 

Now there was only fire and the skeletal remains of burning buildings. Bright, all consuming orange washing away the colors and turning everything to charcoal outlines. Only the church spire and a few houses on the far end of town were even recognizable. 

He stood there, for a long moment. Overcome by the destruction. This was the life he’d been building for the last year. His only hope of finding out anything about the virus. Or of finding and curing Mr. McGuinness. 

A building collapsed with a sound like a shot. It was enough to break his shocked revere. The feeling of being trapped surges up, and with it the urge to run. 

He turned, scrambling to get back into the woods and put the sight of the town out of his mind. 

#

He collapsed onto his cot when he finally made it back to his cabin. Then, when the bird song roused him in the morning, he turned over and went back to sleep. He was exhausted. Every few hours he woke from dreams of the townsfolk coming for him with their glazed eyes and claw hands or of losing himself and attacking them instead. 

Finally, his bladder forced him from his bed. After that there was the garden to tend and the smokehouse. Even if just the scent of the cooking meat made him nauseous and tempted him to throw out the meat.   
Everything he felt seemed like it was a sign he was getting sick. From the thirst and exhaustion to the constant imaginary smell of smoke. After three days of this, he finally admitted to himself that he had seemingly made it through without catching the flu. 

That just led to spending another few days in his bed. How was he supposed to deal with being alive when everyone else was gone? The radio, when he got the energy up to take it to the meadow, remained silent.   
He turned to hunting. If there was no one out there and no Paul to get supplies from he’d have to fend for himself this winter. Most of the time when he was out hunting he could almost forget about the sickness.

But every few hunting trips he’d stumble across another sick person and it would all come rushing back.   
The first few weeks it was like seeing Mr. McGuinness, people who were obviously sick, and usually covered in blood. But still recognizable as living people. The longer this went on, the less they looked sick. They would keep going no matter what happened to their bodies. Some would be missing limbs, others had parts of their faces or heads gone and still they would attack anything that they saw moving. 

The ones that were too far gone…he couldn’t just leave them like that. There were some things not even a cure could treat.

Every third day he let himself make the trek to the meadow near the mountains summit where he used to get radio signals. There was never anything but static and every time he went up, he felt a little less hopeful. 

But he couldn’t just go running to another town unprepared. If even Meadow Springs with its tiny populous had been over-run, what had happened in bigger towns? 

After nearly a month, it was time to admit that the radio wasn’t going to magically get signal again. If he wanted to know what was going on, he’d have to look for answers. Finally, he settled on going out to the other cabins that dotted the ridge. Surely he wasn’t the only survivor. Not everybody went into town on a regular basis. 

Most of them were loners like him, instead of the McGuinnesses who rarely let two days go by without going into town. Which had to be where they caught the sickness? He'd been close enough to town that he'd gotten a nasty cough from the smoke, and Mrs. McGuinness had definitely breathed on him when she'd jumped him. If it was transmitted by breathing the same air Vasquez would have gotten sick.

So, it was probably safe as long as he didn't get their saliva or blood or whatever else on him. Like colds where they gave you the masks when you went to the doctor so you kept your fluids to yourself. 

Vasquez could work with that. He rigged up an outfit that included gloves so he wouldn't accidentally put his hands in anything he shouldn't and a kerchief pulled tight over his mouth and nose. He looked like a bandit from the old westerns his Madre had liked to watch. It would have amused her to see him. 

He pushed the thought away. He'd had fifteen nieces and nephews and he well remembered Madre’s complaints that whatever anybody they knew had would inevitably come home with the children. She was probably dead. and the kids were to. He hoped she was dead. He couldn't quite squash the image of her going rabid and attacking the children like Mr. McGuinness had that squirrel. 

It was a enough to give him even more nightmares. 

#

The first cabin he goes to is more ramshackle shack than an actual home. But the man who lived here was regularly rumored by the people in town to either be running a still or some kind of meth lab. 

Nobody in town knew much about him except that he occasionally came to drink at the local bar or bought something at Paul's. So Vasquez doubted he'd have been in town when whatever had caused the outbreak had happened. He also doubted that he'd be happy to see Vasquez. But it was the closest cabin to his own where he was sure that the inhabitant wouldn't have been in town in the last few months. 

He made sure to keep the gun on his back instead of in his hands. It made him twitchy, approaching like this. Felt too much like the time at the Mugginess’ cabin, but getting shot was a more likely outcome than getting jumped by someone sick. 

"Hello," he called from the edge of the woods. He was just inside the tree-line, where whoever was in the cabin would be able to see him. He'd lowered the kerchief to just cover his mouth and chin, for now. No point looking anymore disreputable than he already did in his hodge podge of stained and hand-me-down clothes. 

There was no answer. He shifted back into the woods, letting the bulk of a tree shield him from view from the cabin, and strained his ears to see if he could pick anything up that sounded like someone preparing their gun. 

The woods remained filed with noise around him. Nothing like the unnerving silence that came when one of the sick was nearby. It did mean that he couldn't hear much from a cabin that was yards away.   
After a few minutes waiting and listening, he eased out from the tree and walked a little closer to the cabin. "Hello!” he called again. 

Still no noise from the cabin, still no telling silence from the woods. Moving slowly, he shifted his gun from its place on his back to where he could aim it at the cabin. 

No sudden movements, but also not willing to play sitting duck any longer. It was an afterthought when he pulled his mask back over his nose. He still wasn't used to having to worry about contamination. 

He edged closer to the cabin, one slow step at a time. Careful to not trip on any of the various piles of rusted metal that were half buried in the tall grass, surrounding the shack. He could see why the people of the town thought the man who lived here was up to something that made money from less disreputable means. 

Nobody in town would have left the place strewn with scrap metal and building supplies that could have been used to fix a cabin or been sold for a few dollars if dragged down the mountain to one of the recycling plants. 

When he got the the cabin, he used the wall to shield the bulk of his body and reaches up to knock on the door. Maybe the owner was off at his still or lab or whatever and all the care he was taking was pointless. If nobody answered, he'd stay on the porch for a few hours and see if they came home. He reached up to knock. 

The door swung open with a creaking moan. Well fuck. It didn't seem likely that whatever color of criminal lived here, they were the type to take to the country tradition of living their door unlocked.   
Vasquez braced himself for having someone jump out at him. For having to shoot someone. A situation he was slowly being forced to become used to. 

Then all in one move he swung out from the wall, shoved the door open, and stepped inside. It was dark inside, only the barest trickle of light making its way through the cracks between siding and windows. He barely breathed, straining to hear even the barest whisper of movement that would tell him someone was inside. 

There was nothing. And the behind him the woods were still full of the usual noises. He lowered the muzzle of his shotgun. not all the way, but so it was pointed towards the floor rather than in front of him. 

Edging forward, he didn't raise his foot more than an inch from the floor, he didn't want to trip and set the gun off. If he was stupid enough to shoot his foot off there was nowhere he could go to get it fixed now. 

His boots hit debris he still couldn’t see. Things that rattled and crunched but most of it seems small. He used the wall to guide him towards the side of the cabin, where he'd seen a window. He had to grope around once he got there, only the barest hit of gray light letting him know where the window even was. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to nail the curtain shut over the window. 

Whether because they had been trying to keep the infected out, or it had always been this way, Vasquez didn't know. He had to put the gun down to get both hands on the fabric. He yanked, sharply jerks that finally worked the nails loose with a series of popping noises. 

The window's glass was dirty, streaked with God knew what, but at least without the curtain he could see a little better. The cabin was a mess. Trash, bottles, and cans littered the floor. There was a mattress in the far side of the room. A pair of sheets must have originally been pulled over it, but they were pulled partially off, revealing dark stains. 

A table was against the back wall near Vasquez and next to it were a few cabinets, their doors open and hanging off the hinges. 

There was no sign of blood or struggle. But except for a few shirts hanging on pegs and a handful of dirty laundry at the bottom of a tipped over basket, there was no sign of personal effects. 

Vasquez felt his shoulders relax. There wasn't anybody here and probably hadn't been since before the outbreak in town. The cabin's owner had probably fled to somewhere where they had a chance of getting a cure and knowing what the hell was going on. 

Which meant Vasquez still didn't have a way to know what was happening, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about shooting anybody or getting infected. 

He started searching the cabinets, leaving the bed and clothes where they were. The stench of mildew and rot was strong, and he didn't like the look of the stains on the mattress. He might not get the sickness from them, but he would probably end up catching fleas or lice. 

The cabinets had mostly been ransacked, but in a hurry. Most of them were empty but there were a handful of cans towards the back of them, which Vasquez added to his pack. He could always use more supplies for winter. 

The table has a variety of boxes stuffed under it. Most of which are full of various metal pipes and plastic tubes. Probably for whatever lab or still the man had been running. 

He packed what he could recognize and left the rest. He couldn't afford the added weight and it wasn't like it was going to go bad waiting here. If he thought of a use for it, he could come back. So far the people who were sick hadn't shown signs of denning so as long as he locked the door when he left nobody else was likely to come here. 

And if there was some other survivor in the area, they were welcome to what they could use.   
He left the cabin, disappointed, but with at least a fuller pack. He considers heading back home now, but the sun is just brushing the tops of the trees and he's not likely to make it back tonight even if he started now.   
It won't hurt to go looking for the still or lab. To see if there is any sort of medicine or alcohol he can use. Then he can set up his camp in the cabin for the night. 

He had to circle the cabin twice before he managed to figure out where the woods have been carefully cut back to make it easier to walk through them. He kept his rifle up as he followed the trail. It was patchy, and he has to circle back a few times before he finally reached the lean too. The last quarter mile he mostly followed his nose. Which probably means that it is a meth lab. 

More's the pity. Maybe he can find some cold medicine that hasn't been converted yet. But alcohol had a lot more uses. He stopped in sight of the shelter and called a hello. Not too loudly lest, he attract someone who was ill. But still, better not to startle a meth head if they are out here. 

Like the cabin there is no reply and when he circled the shelter to see inside, it looks similarly ransacked. There are a few knocked over bottles of chemicals and a variety of equipment he wouldn't know how to name. 

Most interesting though was a section in back that had been roughly waterproofed. When he pulled aside the siding to look inside, there are a couple gas cans, a can of noxious smelling chemicals, and shoved into a back corner where he almost misses it, a CB radio. 

It was heavy when he picked it up, obviously built to last and when he turned it on it lets out a loud whine.   
He doesn't know much about CB radio, but it was at least a chance of doing something besides listening to dead air for hours. He emptied out most of the canned food he'd gotten at the cabin and replaced it with the radio. 

The weight of it bouncing against his back felt like hope


	3. He Refreshes my Soul

He went back to his cabin at first light the next morning. Desperate to get the CB radio hooked up. To get a chance to hear someone else's voice and to get some idea of what was going on outside of his small pocket of relative peace. 

His uncle had a CB in his truck when Vasquez had been growing up. Vasquez had gotten to use it to talk to a few other truckers, but he’d never set one up before. After a few days of fiddling, he was able to rig up an antenna hooked up. The channels were all full of static. 

The noise felt like it was drilling into his brain. He’d been so sure this would mean not being alone. It was tempting to turn the whole thing off and ignore it. Instead, he started a type of Marco Polo, calling Breaker Breaker into all the main channels, at random intervals. 

When he wasn't actively seeking contact, he left the radio set to Channel nine, which the minimal instructions on the side of the radio admonish him was only to be used in cases of emergency. If the end of the fucking world wasn't an emergency, he didn't know what was. 

After a solid week of trying and ignoring his hunting trips, in favor of sitting by the radio for hours he'd finally started to lose hope. 

The obsessive need to check the radio was starting to feel like the same pointless trek he made up the ridge to try to find some signal on his hand crank radio. He was out in the garden weeding when the call came. The static becoming a clear voice. 

"Breaker, breaker. Looking for information about safe passage through Meadow Spring." 

Vasquez hands full were full of weeds. His eyes were glued to the cabin door. It wasn't until the second call of "Breaker, Breaker. Anybody in the area?" came that he jumped to his feet. 

He didn't remember dropping everything. But the next clear memory was depressing the button on the handset. And taking a deep breath to try and hold back a gut deep sob. "Breaker, breaker. I'm in the area of Meadow Springs. There was a fire. Nobody is there any more." 

Should he say that there were still sick people in the woods? 

"Well Shit." The voice comes again. It sounds much less official, a southern twang coming into his voice.   
It was like listening to Paul or one of the men from the church. English already hard enough to understand, going half cut off and dragged out. 

"Do you know anything about what is going on? I heard a news report about some kind of sickness last time I made it into town. But that was months ago. I haven't heard anything sense." Was that too much to say at once? It felt like too much, but Vasquez couldn't shake the fear that if he didn't get all the words out now the person on the other end of the line might disappear. 

There was a long silence on the other end. Vasquez tried to wait, tried to be patient, but he was about to try to hail again when there was a crackle on the line. 

After another second of silence, the voice spoke. "How much you know about the sickness?" 

"My friend in town said they were working on a cure, but I should stay away for a couple weeks. Then one of my neighbors, they went rabid." He didn't want to say it didn't want to make it real, but he had to. "I killed them. Do you know how long it will be before someone can get the cure up here?" 

"I'm sorry. But there is not cure. It struck to fast. Maybe if the government ever comes back online, but nobody heard anything since a few weeks after the first outbreak. All the tv stations went to static. Nothing on the radio except ghosts." 

Vasquez had known that someone should have come with help by now if they were going to. But he had still had hope. He wanted to put down the radio, turn it to a different channel and act like this had never happened. 

A sob escaped instead. The thought of his Madre, and the kids all gone. Maybe a sibling still alive, like him, able to make it on their own. But half a continent away, with no hope of seeing them again. 

He comes back to himself, he was curled up against the wall, the radio handset dangling at the end of its cord. He didn't know how long it had been, but the person on the other end of the radio was talking. "I'm about to cut around Meadow Springs. Haven't heard from you in a bit. I might already be out of your range. But thank you for warning me and I'll try to make contact when I drive back through” 

Vasquez lunged for the handset. He didn't want the voice to go away. "I'm here. I'm sorry. It — too much."

"Yeah. It's a fucking mess." The voice agreed. "Do you know what your range is? It has to be pretty good if you are still receiving me now that I'm on the other side of town." 

Vasquez thought of the antenna he'd had to gone back to the meth lab to get when he hadn't been able to get signal. And his various attempts to get it hooked to his roof with as much metal as he could, in order to get it up above the tree line. "Don't know." 

"Okay. So we'll just talk until I get out of range. I am in contact with a couple other folks in the area. Once I know your range, I'll see about telling them know what station you are on and see if they can reach you." 

"They are not mobile like you?" Vasquez asked. Honestly the thought of being in a truck, driving around with no way to keep supplies or know when you were going to be attacked or have an entire town wiped off the map sounded terrifying to him. It didn’t surprise him that most people weren’t willing to play the odds like that. 

"Nah, Red Harvest, he's the one I think you'll be close enough to reach easy. He has two cabins he moves back and forth between. One towards the top of the mountain and one in a valley for the wintertime. Angel of Death, he's stationary, but your on the far end of his CB range and I'll have to talk to him about getting a stronger antenna. Horne doesn't get on the radio much. He lost his family in the chaos and doesn't much like talking to others." 

Four people in the entire range of his radio. Five when his mystery speaker was in the area. In Meadow Springs alone there had been a few hundred. Had the local population really been paired down that much? If so, there was little wonder that nobody had created a cure. Who would be left to find one? "And what should I call you?" 

"Oh, sorry. I'm out of the habit of introductions. Almost everybody already knows me at this point. You can call me Faraday." 

"I'm Vasquez." Vasquez offered in return. 

They kept speaking until Faraday went out of range about a half hour later. Vasquez was tempted to ask about Austin and if there was any news. Or about how much of the population was left if Faraday knew. But he felt hollowed out and exhausted from what he already had discovered, he was afraid he would break if he had to take in any more. 

It was still light out when the CB radio finally went silent again. The last few minutes had been mostly static, interspersed with a few words as Faraday rounded the other side of the mountain. Vasquez dragged himself from the floor and closed the door before falling onto his bed fully clothed. He’d finish working in the garden tomorrow. 

For now he just wanted to forget everything. He’d thought that talking to someone else about what was going on would make him feel better. He’d been counting on some kind of cure coming if he just waited a few more weeks. 

Now what was he supposed to do? 

#   
He started going back out to hunt after that. If there was only one person in easy range of his CB radio there didn’t seem to be much point staying in the cabin waiting to talk to them. He’d try to hail Red Harvest in the evenings. And work on getting as many supplies packed away for Winter as he could.

He came across Mrs. Michael’s in the woods while he was huntng. She’d tended to be more mobile than most of Meadow Springs’ residents. Her son and grandchildren lived a few towns over in Rose Creek. She usually spent the weekdays at their house watching the kids while her son worked. And then the weekends back in Meadow Springs. He’d hoped she had been out of town. 

She was dressed in her Sunday best. And except for the vacant eyes and the bloody lips and chin she didn’t even look sick. Usually he would leave her like this. Wait until he saw her again and hope that he’d find a cure before then. Now, he watched as she chased a bird in circles. He could wait. Hope she didn’t find any survivors to infect with her illness.

It didn’t seem like there were many people left for her to infect. Was it really kindness to leave her like this, though? Slowly degrading in the woods without anyone to mark her passing or say prayers over her. Would he want this for his Madre?

The rifle shot sent her slumping to the ground. And scared the bird she’d been chasing away. He made a pyre around her and lit it aflame. The smell was familiar and sickening. He pulled the kerchief tighter against his face. Was this going to be what the rest of his life was like?

#

The last few days had been sitting by pyre after pyre. And he couldn’t stand the thought of going out to do it again, today.

Instead, he planned to stay home and tend to the smoke house and garden. Try to distract himself from the fact that he was leaving people out there, sick and dangerous, when he could help them. It was too much. Even if it was the right thing to do.

“Breaker, breaker. Looking for Vasquez.” The voice was rough like it hadn’t been used much.

Vasquez could relate. He hadn’t started talking to himself yet, but he suspected he would start soon. Just to hear something beside bird song and the low moans of the ill. 

“Vasquez speaking?” 

“Red Harvest.”

Vasquez waited for Red Harvest to say more. Finally he gave in and started talking himself. Red Harvest answered occasionally. His first language wasn't English and neither was Vasquez's. So their conversation is stilted. But they set up a regular time to call each other on the non-emergency line.

They mostly stuck to discussing movement of deer and recently seen infected humans. 

Red's cabin was twenty five miles away. Vasquez was often tempted to walk it, but unless he wants to cut through the mountains and risk getting lost, he would have to take a path close to not only the burnt out husk of Meadow Springs but the two closest towns in that direction. Including the one with the big hospital.

Red Harvest said he'd tried to go there once to find other survivors. "It was like a nightmare. They all hunt together. There was nothing alive that they would not eat.”

Just the idea of it was enough to keep Vasquez to the relative safety of the woods. It seemed wrong to be thankful that Meadow Springs had burned. But if there had been hundreds of the ill, hunting in packs that overran the woods, he would be long dead. 

After a month of the twice weekly calls with Red Harvest, Vasquez got hailed by “The Angel of Death” He talked enough to make up for Vasquez and Red Harvest, both.

Apparently his partner, Billy had been working on getting a better antenna for the last couple months, trying to get in touch with more people before winter. "It wouldn't do to lose any more folks, simply because we have no way to ask for help." 

Vasquez was not sure what to do with the man. Now that he had the range for it, he wasn’t above getting involved with other conversations on the channel. And as good as it was to hear another voice, dealing with him was exhausting.

#

Of all the people who he talked to, Faraday quickly became his favorite. Even though he didn’t come into Vasquez’s range that often. Whenever he asked what Faraday did on his various trips around the mountain, he’d get a nonsensical answer in return. 

"Oh, you know how it is Vas. Not everybody is set up like you boys in your mountain fortresses. Many a damsel in distress needs a helping hand." 

Then he’d launch into some humorous story from before the illness or get Vasquez to tell him a funny story about his family. It felt like a little bubble of normalcy. 

# 

“Vasquez… hey Vasquez….you there?” 

The voice jolted Vasquez awake. “Faraday?” 

Had he been dreaming? 

“Vasquez?” The CB went off again. 

Vasquez’s stomach dropped. What would have make Faraday hail him in the middle of the night? He jumped for the radio, tripping over his blanket as it tangled around his feet. Depressing the button on the handset, he called. “Faraday? I’m here.” 

"Can you swap to another channel for me, Vas? Don't need Angel getting an earful." 

Fuck. What had happened. “Yeah, just give me a sec.” 

On the new channel Faraday's voice was not the same bright cheerfulness he always used. "I picked up a lady tonight. Lost her whole family. They tried to help this little kid.” 

He kept going, his voice almost too quiet to hear, “Kids you know they're the worst. They don't go rabid like adults. They just get quiet, feverish, clingy. Just want to be held and looked after. And that's in our DNA isn't it, wanting to protect our kids. 

They thought it was safe. Just a cold from the bad weather. Then one after another they start getting sick. They were desperate to get over the mountains before the snow. Keep going even as one after another they get sick. The kid, they're giving their supplies to him. Trying to do the right thing, the human thing. 

And it's killing them. They make it to the pick up point where I'm supposed to get them. And there are just the three of them. A woman and her husband carrying the kid. When I got the call they were looking for help there were over a dozen of them." He trailed off for a long moment. 

Vasquez felt like he needed to say something, needed to offer some kind of comfort. But there wasn't any comfort here. Just the still air, and the sound of Faraday's muffled sobs. In the dark of his cabin, with only the dim light of the moon coming through the window, it felt like a confessional booth. He could practically smell the burning of candles and hear the noise of the parishioners on the other side of the door. 

"Ten people that died because they were doing the right thing. And I get there, and the man his eyes shine green in the light of my headlamps. The kids do too. That's the first sign, that they are about to go symptomatic. And I have to get out and shoot them in front of that woman. Not even enough time to explain why because if that kid gets close enough to me I'm dead. And if the couple panics and things I'm a threat, they'll kill me and take the truck. And best-case scenario they get sick and run the vehicle off the road before they can infect anybody else." 

Vasquez wants to throw up. He wants to leave the radio and this horror story behind. He imagines the town before it burned. There had been dozens of kids there. Had they been the ones carrying the virus? Had someone else had to make a choice like this. To kill people who didn't look gone yet, to protect everybody else. He never thought himself lucky before only dealing with the people who were already gone. 

"She tried to shoot me, tried to reach them to give them some kind of help. And I had to explain. We sat there for the whole night waiting to see if she’d gotten infected.

"Is she okay?" 

Faraday's laugh is more like a bark. "Are any of us okay?" 

No. "You kept her alive, that's all you could do." 

"Thanks Vas," It doesn't sound sincere when he says it. More sarcastic than anything, but Vasquez stays next to the radio as Faraday kept his button depressed and sobbed. 

Vasquez doesn't know how long they sit together. Miles of darkness apart but with a shared grief. But when Faraday's sobs quiet to hitching gasps. He thanks Vasquez again before he signs off for the night. 

# 

Things started to change after that. Slowly at first. Faraday mostly still called during the day, and chatted away about things with Vasquez or the Angel or Death, or even Red Harvest. 

But occasionally there were the nighttime calls when he would tell Vasquez about the latest batch of refugees he’d driven over the mountain. About how they would be looking for some place where the sickness hadn’t reached yet, how they heard it was out west. And how sometimes he carried people from the west side of the ridge who swore the promised land was on the east coast. “I’m telling you Vas, it’s just on fucking game of Telephone and what am I supposed to tell them. Hey, there is no hope better to give up now? 

Vasquez never had an answer for those questions. But, he started sharing his own stories as well. Of having to kill people who had helped him survive last winter. Of how he was starting to find people in the woods he’d never met before. How he’d sat beside a graveyard worth of funeral pyres and didn’t know how much longer he could keep doing it, before he went mad or got sick. 

Faraday started to bunk down within range of Vasquez’s CB when he was on the eastern side of the range. They spent most nights he was in range talking.


	4. He guides me along the right paths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update is late. I had some work SNAFUs to contend with.

He took advantage of one of Faraday’s longer trips, to make a trip of his own. The longer trips were becoming fewer. Part of that was Faraday’s attempts to always spend the nights he could in range of Vasquez’s CB.  
  
Faraday said it was because people were getting ready for winter and weren’t as willing to risk a long trip. Vasquez hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that there just weren’t that many survivors left. 

 Faraday had been all up and down the mountain and had only been able to give Vasquez a handful of people to talk to over the CB. If there was anybody else alive in range of Vasquez’s cabin, they didnt have CB.  
  
He was going to have to go out and find them himself. Leaving the relative safety of his cabin and the woods around them, which he had mostly cleared of the infected

In addition to finding survivors he also needed to gather more supplies. He had been able to pack some food in his bag when he had gone to investigate the meth maker's cabin, but not nearly enough once he had to carry the CB radio. And on subsequent trips to the meth lab, he’d been weighed down by the antenna rig and some other odds and ends. 

Traveling to cabins that were ten or fifteen miles out, or even to Dannville, the town that was between Meadow Springs and the one with the big hospital, was risky. It would require something more than a day pack and a rifle if he wanted to survive and get enough supplies to make the trip worth it.

The McGuinness’ truck had still been in working order. And the meth dealer had a couple containers of gas, for the generators. It should be enough to get him to the other cabins and back in one or two trips. 

Stealing the truck felt disrespectful, but even if he just wanted to get the preserved food and firewood moved from the McGuinness’ to his cabin, he was going to have to use it. And they wouldn’t have wanted him to starve or leave any other survivor without help. 

They would understand. As much as their spirits could still understand anything. He’d found Mr. McGuinness torn partially apart, like he’d been killed by a bear, after the first month of the sickness. It had been a relief, even as it had hurt losing his last hope of being able to ask someone for forgiveness for what he had done.

#

The truck was still sitting by the burnt patch of ground where he'd cremated Mrs. McGuinnes. True to country tradition, Mr. McGuinness had left the keys’ tucked between the ceiling and the sun visor. It was an old enough model that it didn’t auto lock. Even when left unused for weeks. 

The engine sputtered a few times before it started, making him worry that it wasnt going to start and he would be trapped. 

But finally it turned over and Vasquez was on his way. He drove slow. The posted speed limits never got above 35 on the hilly and often dirt roads he drove. But he drove even slower than that, always wary of hitting a broken down vehicle or even an infected person blocking the road. 

But, there was nothing but an eery emptiness. Did the infected still remember that the road’s meant cars and nobody available to bite? Or were they just lying in wait in the scrub by the road, waiting for someone stupid enough to get out of the car? 

The first cabin was ten miles out, and the last mile he had to climb on foot, when the road ended before he could reach the cabin. He had to backtrack twice before he even got that close. He was used to finding these places by hiking, or some discussion of landmark. Road names and turn offs weren’t nearly as clear. 

He didn’t know much about the person who had lived at this cabin, Paul had only described them as a reprobate. The yard was open and full of grass and rusted out older cars. There was a large garden in the back.

It had been over-run with weeds. What few crops had survived were rotting. It seemed almost pointless to go to the cabin itself after the sight of it, but he went anyway. If someone sick was inside, he should make sure nobody else could get infected. 

The side door hung off its hinge, a streak of dried blood covered the area around the door handle, and the handle itself. When he got close enough to see inside, there was blood on the floor too. And the smell of rotting flesh emanated from inside. He called a greeting to lure any infected out, but no one came out, and he wasn’t desperate enough yet to go into a place that smelled that much like a slaughter house. 

He packed the wood pile into the back of the truck and left.  
Most of the cabins he went to, were like that. Since of violence or decomposed bodies. Some were just abandoned, personal items and food missing from the shelves and everything else left behind. He took more from those homes, packing away canned food and coffee beans along with clothes and shoes that came close to fitting him. 

It felt less like grave robbing when it was clear the owners had left by choice. Even if they had probably died after they left. 

His final stop was the edge of the ridge that led down to Danville. He had taken a pair of binoculars from one of the abandoned cabins. It had been perched on top of a pile of birdwatching books, next to a half-drunk cup of coffee and a plate full of something that had once been food. 

He watched Danville for a long time. Until the sun started to go down and it became too dark for him to feel safe out in the open. It was strange thinking of Meadow Spring being like this. Filled with shambling bodies, parts of the city still lit up like someone uninfected was still living there. 

It was not quite as bad as how Red Harvest had described the town near him, but it was enough to make Vasquez grateful that Meadow Spring had burned instead. It seemed more respectful to have them die fast and unchanged, rather than lingering, kept alive by whatever wildlife they caught to eat. 

The back of the truck was full of wood and gas cans. The cab had piles of clothes and canned foods. 

He would have happily given any of it up to have found another uninfected person instead. 

#

The leaves were turning colors, and the wind cut into Vasquez’ lungs like blades whenever he went outside without his mask.

They had another month and a half until it should start snowing. 

But if he got unlucky, they could have the first snowstorm in under a month. And it wasn’t like there were any weather radio stations left to tell him when to expect snow. 

All his attention was going to repairing the cabin and getting everything stored for winter. He’d gone on a few more long trips, to get supplies and look for survivors. But like his trips up the ridge with his radio, the trips were beginning to feel pointless. 

He got up the courage to ask Faraday about the national guard one night. The sheer number of deaths seemed like it would have easily made this into a national emergency even if the Government had gotten wiped off the map. “Have you picked up any radio signals from the army base on your route west?” 

“Some. Mostly just warnings for civilians to stay way. ‘If you are suspected of being an infection risk, you will be shot. All infected pose a threat to national security.’ He was obviously imitating someone, his usual drawl flattening out into the mid-western accent. Finally, he added. “Like there is a fucking nation to secure.” 

The line went quiet. Faraday usually tried to avoid talking about the world before the sickness when they talked at night. Sometimes they would talk about stupid things, like what foods they missed or where they’d go, when they talked during the day. Red Harvest of Angel of Death would chime in and everyone would have a good laugh. 

Their night time talks were different. More intimate. And often dealing with the reality of constantly living with the threat of being killed and being forced to kill others to survive. 

Faraday was the only one he could talk to about the ghostly faces that haunted his dreams. And he was the one Faraday called when a job went bad and he lost the survivors he was trying to rescue to either the Illness or some other malady that had cropped up as a side effect of the upheaval. Too many people left without food or meds to keep them alive. 

“Do you have a plan for what you are going to do this winter? You can’t keep driving around. Even if you find snow tires, you’ll die if you lose control or run out of gas.” 

“Not yet-” he trailed off. “Rumor has it most of the sick will die off in the colder areas like the top of the mountains or the northern states. Alaska and upper Canada might even be illness free by next summer.” 

“Really?” Vasquez tried to imagine that. Everything going back to normal. Only with most of the population gone. “That sounds like those rumors you keep hearing about an illness free zone.”  
Faraday hummed an affirmative. “True. But way I hear it, the infected keep going because they can’t feel pain or cold or any kind of limitation.” 

“Yeah.” That certainly sounded like the ones Vasquez had encountered. They would be missing half their face and still lunging for him. 

“But just cause they can’t feel it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect them. You bury them in ten feet of snow and they are going to stop moving. Going to freeze under a couple feet of snow and days worth of subfreezing temperatures. Once they die, they should stay dead. There haven’t been any reports about people actually coming back after they are dead.” 

A sick feeling opened up in Vasquez’s stomach. “You think they are actually going to stay dead?” 

“Don’t know. But it makes sense. The only way to kill a virus is fire or cold. And we know burning the infected works.”

Vasquez got up to pace. The feeling of being trapped was coming back ans his mind kept trying to imagine what it would be like to be one of the infected, buried alive. Starving or freezing to death, whichever came first. 

It would be his worst nightmare. And he didn’t know what to feel about the idea of the infected dying that way. If they froze, they would stop being a threat, he wouldn’t have to go out and shoot them to keep them from infecting more people.

But did leaving them to slowly die, really make him better than going out and killing them as cleanly as he could? His stomach tied itself in knots. He paced faster. 

“Vas, you still there?” Faraday’s voice crackled from the CB.

Vasquez circled back to pick up the handset. Would Faraday think less of him for not being happy about the infection dying out? “Am here. Just think I am too tired to keep talking.” 

“Alright. I should probably be heading to bed, anyway. I’m supposed to be meeting up with one of the folks that help me locate survivors. Sound like they have a big group they are looking to move.” 

“Be safe.” He should make himself keep talking. The risks of getting attacked always went up when Faraday had to deal with a large group of survivors. There was a bigger chance of getting someone who didn’t know they were infected among the crowd. And since larger groups didn’t usually know each other that well, nobody noticed until it was too late. 

Faraday had lost three of his survivor groups that way in the time Vasquez had known him. 

“I’ll do my best. Talk to you next time Vas.” 

And then Vasquez was alone to contemplate his mixed feelings about the infected dying out over the winter. 

# 

Vasquez got three days to contemplate what it would be like if Faraday’s big group got him killed. And the fact that the last thing that Vasquez had said to him had been about the infected. 

A whole life without hearing Faraday’s voice again. It felt like the woods were pressing closer and closer around the cabin with every breath he took. Time was rushing forward like a runaway train about to go plunging off a cliff. 

How long until the snow came? Until he was completely alone with even the lifeline of his CB radio cut. The idea of three months of silence, surrounded by an impassable forest filled with snow. It was like his old nightmare’s of being thrown into prison. 

The ones that had driven him halfway across the country in the first place. 

He hadn’t realized that dying quickly had been something he was counting on. Not until Faraday had told him that the cold would stop the people infected by the virus and Vasquez had to start planning for more than the next hunting trip or the first snowstorm 

Stocking the cabin had been a good project to keep him busy, along with the hunting and his garden. It wasn’t like he’d been actively planning to die. It just had been a promise that he wouldn’t have to live like this for the rest of his life. 

How was he supposed to deal with that possibility being taken away? He had his rifle, and the handguns he’d collected from the other cabins nearby. 

If he couldn’t take the isolation there were other ways out.  
Why did that feel so much more like giving up and failing than being infected and having to protect other survivors by killing himself? It was the same action. 

It was a relief when the CB crackled to life and gave him an excuse to stop pretending to sleep while his mind kept bringing up images of being buried alive in snow. 

He leapt for the handset. “Faraday, that you?” 

 

“Yeah, Vas.” He sounded hesitant. His drawl dragging out slower than usual. 

“Everything alright?” Vasquez almost followed that up with his habitual ‘anything I can do to help’ but bit it off before it got out. He didn’t need to them both that despite the fact that their lives were connected, they couldn’t physically help each other. 

“Yeah… just a lot to deal with.” 

The thought of having Faraday here where he could actually do something to help seemed so right. Like it had been something he’d been thinking about for weeks, even months. “Faraday do you want to-” 

Faraday started talking at the same time. “Vas, I got something to-” 

They both stopped and after a few more attempts to speak at the same time, Vasquez managed to keep quiet long enough for Faraday to continue. 

“I have a job. It’s big…and really dangerous…but I can’t exactly explain it. Not over the CB. Just it’s important and I have to do it. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you this much, but I didn’t want to just disappear on you.” 

Vasquez’s mouth went dry. Could he even ask Faraday to come here now? To spend the winter with him? “If it’s dangerous maybe I should meet you somewhere, try to help?” 

Faraday made a noise before he could let go of the handset and cut off his voice. It sounded like a sob. 

Faraday came back on the line. His voice rough and his breath heavy between words. “Just like that. You’d come do something stupidly dangerous that I can’t even explain, just to help me.”

Vasquez was blushing and Faraday wasn’t even here to see it. “Si, you are important.” 

“You’re important to me to Vas.” 

They sat, with just the sound of breathing between them for a long time. Faraday finally broke the quiet reverie, “What was it you wanted to ask me?” 

“You could come here for the winter. Park somewhere away from Meadow Springs. I know back trails. Not completely safe, but between the two of us, should be safe enough. You won’t have to worry about running out of gas that way.” 

This time the choked off noise from Faraday’s end was a laugh. “Well aint we just a pair. I call to say I’m going to go risk my life the same time you call to ask me to find a way to stay safe.” 

Vasquez didn’t really see the humor. 

“I can’t come, not because I don’t want to, but because this is too important. But I promise if I make it back, I’ll find you. We can stay in your cabin together, or maybe if this works out I’ll have somewhere that is even safer.” 

“Please just tell me.” 

“I-I can’t.” Faraday replied. “Don’t ask me again. Not if you care for me. I’ll want to tell you and there is a reason I can’t.” 

Vasquez did care for Faraday. Might even love him. He didn’t ask. Instead they talked about funny stories from the kids Faraday had taken over the mountain on his last trip, and the ridiculous meals Faraday had been eating since he didn’t have a way to preserve meat or grow vegetables like Vasquez did. 

The tension was still there, beneath the laughter. But if this was the last conversation Vasquez was going to have with Faraday he didn't want it to be full of arguments. When they finally said goodbye, it took them a full five minutes. Neither of them was ready to say the words 'I love you', but they could still feel it. 

When the radio clicked off, it felt like Vasquez’s heart broke with the sound.


	5. Though I walk through the Valley of Death, I will Fear no Evil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to post. I got caught up in the Hurricane mess. Posting the last chapter just before we get the next tropical storm rolling through our area. Thank you all for sticking with me.

There was somebody talking in the field around his house. The voice was high, he thought a woman. It echoed out into the woods where he was slowly hawling in a deer. It had been two weeks since Faraday had left. Vasquez had channeled his worry into the family tradition of cooking way to much food in a perverse conviction that as long as you were still making food for a person they’d have to come back eventually to eat it.

Of course this being the apocalypse, cooking food actually meant hunting for as much food as he could fit in the smoke house.

The weather had turned cold enough that all the food had been harvested from his ratty patch of garden. And he didn’t want to go far enough out to reach another cabin. What if he missed a CB call and never knew what had happened to Faraday?

Or the others. It hadn’t missed his notice that Angel of Death and Red Harvest had gone quiet within a few day of Faraday leaving on his big job.

And now there were people at his cabin. At least he assumed the woman wasn’t talking to herself. The ranting and the fact that she paused for replies, that he couldn’t hear, implied there was at least one other person up ahead.

Could it be Faraday? He couldn’t imagine the man staying quiet this long though. He could leave, come back later and hope the strangers had left. But the deer was a heavy weight across his shoulders and he was desperate for company that could do more than moan and try to bite him.

He lowered the deer to the pine needle strewn ground as quietly as he could, took the safety off his gun, and stalked forward into the bright sunlit meadow.

A pair of horses, one black and the other chestnut, were loosely ties to a tree in sight of the cabin's packed earth stoop.

The woman he’d heard was pacing frantically from one end of the stoop to the other. Her hair a fiery trail behind her. Her hands underscore everything she said. Vasquez was expecting relief when he saw someone else alive and healthy.

Instead, instincts honed over the last months, foght with his logic. He knew the woman is not a threat. But the sight of her moving fast screamed threat anyway.

The woman had so much of his attention, he barely noticed her companion. They are carefully positioned in an area of deep shadow, dressed all in black.

“We’ve got company.” The voice came out deep and comanding.

It made Vasquez want to straighten to attention like his Padre was talking. It froze the woman in place, hands still flung wide. After a beat, her head turned and she was staring at him.

Her eyes bored into him. Something hollow and deadly in them. Every instict said to run. Then the man who’d spoken stepped out of the shadows. He was large, even taller than Vasquez, dark skinned with a mustache and hat as black as his clothes. “Sorry for the intrution, but Faraday didn’t give us much information about you.”

So they were from Faraday. He’d have to stay and hear what they had to stay. Fuck everything.

“You might as well come in,” he motioned to the cabin door. He stayed outside until they were in the cabin and wouldn’t be between him and the door if he needed to run. It would have to do.

#

Introductions didn’t help the urge to run.

The man, Sam Chisholm, was an ex Marshal who knew that Vasquez was a wanted man, back before.

Emma Cullen, the woman, was the driving force of their duo. That deadly look in her eyes never faded as she laid out the situation. "He infected us, intentionally. Sent someone he knew was sick into our camp. She didn't have symptoms yet. She was just a little girl. We didn't know to be wary. Kids they don't go rabid when their sick, not like the adults do. The virus just kills them before you even know they caught it. If it wasn’t for Faraday I’d be dead and there wouldn’t be anyone who knew what he did.”

Vasquez had heard the story of course, from Faraday’s point of view. Faraday had been angry, upset, but mostly sick with having to kill an innocent kid just because they’d gotten sick. It was different hearing it from Cullen. Her voice broke as she talked about her family, but it was rage that was driving her, not guilt.

“What does this have to do with Faraday?”

“He agreed to help us make sure Bogue couldn’t do something like this again. He was supposed to go in, as a known smuggler, and then get the rest of our people in to take out Bogue.”

Fucking stupid, self sacrificing bastard. That was a shitty plan. “Did he even have backup with him?”

She shrugged. “He said it would make it obvious he was up to something, since he never worked with a partner when he was transporting people over the ridge.”

“And you just figured, what? You’d send him off to get killed so you could have a shot at Bogue?” It was a cheap shot, but it didn’t feel like it. This woman could have got Faraday to do just about anything, as guilty as he felt for shooting her husband like he had.

“It was a good plan.” She snapped back.

Chisolm stepped forward and put his broad hand on her shoulder. “He wanted to do it and we didn’t have a way to stop him. It was his choice, but he asked us to bring a letter to you, if he failed.”

He reached into his pocket, moving slowly enough that Vasquez could stamp down the urge to draw a gun on him for the movement. The envelope was wrinkled and yellow, but Vasquez’s name was scrawled messily on the front.

When Chisolm held it out to him, he snatched it away, and took it out onto the stoop to read. The sun had started to go down and the cabin was to dim to read in. At least that was what he told himself. The room felt to close with the others in it.

 ~~~

Vas,

 

If you’re reading this, I’m sorry. I know I said I’d come spend the winter with you, but this was important. More important than salvaging a happy ending out of this fucked up situation. The survivor I told you about.

 

The woman who I shot the kid to save, she’s asked for help taking down the bastard who set her up. I can’t say no. Not if there is a chance to save even one other kid.

 

My life before the apocalypse was a mess, but I never stooped to hurting a kid to get what I wanted. And I’ll be damned if I let someone else hurt them now.

 

I’m sorry

 

I love you.

 

Goodbye,

Faraday

 ~~~

He’d known what it was going to say. It still left tears tracking silently down his cheeks. He had never felt strong enough about anything to stand up and die for it. And he still hated the idea of being trapped, but that’s what staying here was going to become without Faraday.

Years without a voice on the other end of the radio waves. Years of dying by inches.

He folded the letter carefully back into the envelope and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He went back inside.

Chisolm and Cullen were waiting for him there, talking to each other.

“What do you want me to do?” He asked.

“Make Bogue pay.”

#

Faraday was too pale to be out of bed. His skin looked translucent in the morning light as he used the column of the hotel’s porch to prop himself up.

“You’re still supposed to be in bed.” Vasquez said.

Faraday lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. The other arm was strapped securely to his chest. At least he hadn’t lost all reason and tried to get it untied in addition to sneaking out of bed. “I’m tired of being tied down.”

And or course he hit on the one argument that would make Vasquez leave him out here. Vasquez blew out a frustrated breath. It hung in the cold are for a long second before blowing away. There was frost on the grass in front of the porch. Another few weeks and they’d have snow.

“At least sit down in a chair, idiot.” He nodded towards the decorative rockers on the far side of the porch.

Faraday gave him a sheepish smile. “I kinda lost steam before I could get there.”

“Stubborn Idiot.” Vasquez muttered under his breath as he moved to take Faraday’s weight and lead him over to the rockers. There was no heat in the name calling though. Not after the relief of finding Faraday still alive when they’d stormed Bogue’s headquarters.

He’d been shot, and tortured, but Bogue had been too busy trying to pry information out of Faraday to risk infecting him. If Faraday had been a little less stubborn and told him what he’d wanted. He’d have been dead before Vasquez every got a chance to see him. Or touch him.

Together they staggered over to the rockers, and Vasquez helped Faraday to slump into the nearest one. Before he took the other one himself.

“You love me for my idiocy!” Faraday joked back, after he’d had a minute to catch his breath.

Vasquez didn’t bother replying beyond a snort. They still weren’t to a point where either of them could admit to their love in a serious way, but it wasn’t like Faraday was wrong.

“See you can’t even deny it.”

“Still should have stayed in bed.”

It was Faraday’s turn not to deny something. They rocked back and forth as the sun came the rest of the way up, and the frost burned off the ground. “Should leave for the cabin soon if we’re going.”

Faraday had his eyes closed. Only the lack of snoring, a sign he hadn’t fallen asleep. “You still want to be locked up in one room with me for a whole three months?”

“Will keep you out of trouble.” Vasquez replied.

“Ri----ight.” Faraday dragged the word out, the tone dripping with disbelief.

Vasquez had to admit that Faraday had turned out to be more of a trouble magnet than he had thought, when they were talking on the CB.

‘We could stay here, in Rose Hill. Help them rebuild.” Faraday motioned vaguely at the far side of town. The sound of power tools had started up soon after the last of the frost burned off.

“We could.” Did he want that? It had been good, being around people again. But it had been years since he had been around so many people for so long. Did he really want to be here for three more months? Until the last of the snow melted. He looked over at Faraday. He could do it for him. “If that is what you wanted.”

Faraday cracked open an eye. He stared at Vasquez for a long while.

What was he thinking.

“Or we could go back to the cabin, and have a honeymoon. We’ll have my truck and can come visit, between snow storms.”

Vasquez couldn’t help the relieved breath that stuttered out. That sounded better. He nodded.

“We’ll have to decide what to do come spring, when I need to start taking people over the ridge again. But for now, we can take some time for ourselves.”

Vasquez reached out to twine their fingers together. Some time for themselves. That sounded perfect.

The sun was warm on his face, and when he closed his eyes he could hear the sound of Faraday’s breathing and people working to rebuild the town. It was like stepping out of the cage of his lonliness and into the bright daylight of a new world.

The zombie apocalypse was still happeneing, but right here, right now, it didn’t matter. He lifted Faraday’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss into it. “Thank you for being there, when I was alone.”

“No place I’d rather be, partner.”


End file.
